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Fans of fried chicken watch out: your next Nando's could be cooked by a robot, if the techies have their way.
Californian company Miso Robotics has begun rolling Flippy 2, the latest version of its burger-flipping robot which was previously trialled at American fast food chain White Castle.
While the original Flippy could only really flip burger patties, its latest iteration can manage whole fry baskets for chips, onion rings, and chicken nuggets thanks to artificial intelligence.
Using AI machine vision, the robot identifies the type of food, picks it up, and drops it into a frying basket with no human intervention.
The company that makes it say it reduces the amount of contact between people and food, improving hygiene as well as safety by helping workers avoid burns from hot oil.
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It could help restaurants deal with unprecedented staff shortages since the pandemic.
"When an order comes in through the restaurant system, it automatically spits out the instructions to Flippy," said Mike Bell, CEO of Miso Robotics.
He added: "It does it faster or more accurately, more reliably and happier than most humans do it."
Bell said that generally, customers are initially excited to see the robot in a kitchen, take a few pictures, and then don't care that it's making their food.
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He said: "When we put a robot into a location, the customers that come up and order, they all take pictures, they take videos, they ask a bunch of questions. And then the second time they come in, they seem not to even notice it, just take it for granted."
While kitchen robots like Flippy understandably make people fear for their jobs, they could become good colleagues in short-staffed restaurants.
An estimated 75% of bars and restaurants in the UK are currently increasing pay in a bid to attract new staff, as one in six hospitality jobs are currently vacant.
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